Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Where has the day gone? Just stopped in to let you know that I am a guest speaker for the radio program "Stop Child Abuse Now", SCAN, as it is called. The program is on Blog Talk Radio and hosted by Bill Murray. The show will start at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, 7:00 p.m. Central Standard Time, 6:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time and 5:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time in the U. S. I hope you will join us tonight Wednesday, November 20, 2013. I hope you will join us tonight but if that is not possible the following link will work from the archives of the program. Here is the link for the program:

At the end of my biography for the show, Bill says that I published two books, Silent No More and Growing Stronger, Growing Free. I didn't publish the books but I am very proud to be one of many contributors to the writing of the books. Both books are a "collection of works by 'Reaching survivors of sexual abuse' R.S.O.S.A. Founded by Kate Smith." You may purchase copies of these books at the following website:

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Good
afternoon. What a beautiful day it is outside. The sun is shining and
the Autumn winds are blowing. Sometime about the wind has always made me
feel joy and so alive. As a child, I loved to run in the wind. Of
course, as a child, I loved to run any time I could. Walking was just
too slow to get me where I wanted to go. I hope that you all are having a
wonderful day of healing and growing.

Over the past few days, I have
looked inward to my inner self to deal with some of my own issues. Small
ones but they still needed to be looked at so that I don't become
resentful. Resentment doesn't harm anyone but me. The other person
doesn't even know that is how I feel. Most of us don't share our
feelings with those that we carry resentment toward. I am no different
than you.

In order not to hold on to the resentment, I need to look at
where it is coming from and how can I let go of it. I do that by looking
at the feelings that cause my resentment to come out. This time my
resentment came about because of someone else's sense of superiority
brought up my feelings of not being good enough and of not being
listened to or not having my opinion being valued by the other person.

I felt like I wasn't good enough and that my different opinion was not being valued twice this week so I needed to look at my own
issues rather than getting angry at the other person and creating drama
and getting drawn into an argument. I can't help that the other person
believes he/she is superior to everyone else. That is his/her problem,
not mine. I can only deal with the feelings that come up in me. I have
come to know for myself that a person with a superiority complex also
has a frightened little child inside but I can only deal with my own
frightened inner child, not theirs.

When I realized that my feelings
came from the years of living with my emotionally abusive rageaholic
dictator dad, I could let go of the resentment that had been building in
me over the past few days. My value doesn't come from another person,
especially someone else who believes he/she is superior to everyone
else. I don't need to hold on to the resentment or even be angry with
the other person.

I can forgive myself for feeling less than good
enough. I can know that my value is not dependent upon another person
hearing my opinion or not. My self-worth comes from loving myself. I
give me value, not another person. I hope my words help someone else
who may be struggling with feelings of less than good enough today. You
are always good enough. Anyone who brings up those feelings of less than
in you isn't your friend. They don't deserve you or your time.

You can all do your own work of healing when these kinds of issues come up for you. I am no different than you. We all hurt and we all can heal. Don't let another person's behavior send you into a tail spin of low self-worth. That is the objective of a person with a superiority complex. Don't play their mind games. You will never win and the sad thing is they think they do win but they don't. Superiority or inferiority complexes both keep you in the pain rather than helping you to heal. Resentment isn't your friend either. Let go of it. You deserve joy and peace.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

As the holidays are fast approaching, I have noticed several things from my past coming to the surface. My mom has been in two of my dreams recently. Rarely does either of my parents show up in my dreams. Two nights in a row is a sign of something but I am not sure what, other than the anniversary of her death is coming up on November 20. Maybe this will be a year that I do some more grieving. Maybe there is something that she is trying to teach me but I don't know what it is yet. I will wait to see if I get anything more from her or my dreams.

Everywhere I turn for the past few weeks, some survivor is talking about the silent screams of their abuse. I am familiar with those silent screams held inside of you as a child being physically, sexually abused by an adult. You hold the screams in because of the fear that once they start, you may not be able to stop them. You hold them in because, if your abuser can't deal with your tears, he certainly can't deal with your screams of pain and horror over being raped by a grown man when you are just a small child. You hear the screams in your head but no one else does but another survivor who has them too. I know those silent screams are still there inside of me but have no idea what to do with them other than acknowledge their existence like I am doing now.

Over the past few days, I have been part of two conversations in different groups. In both conversations, I expressed a difference of opinion to the other person's opinion. Both times, my opinion was rejected, which is their right. What is not their right or anyone else's is to say that I am still in victim mode or creating drama just because I voiced a different opinion. I got angry. In talking it out with some friends, I realized that the source of my anger was an old issue from my dad and his controlling behavior. As a child, until I left home at 19, I was not allowed to have a difference of opinion with my dad.

Expressing my opinion is important to me as an adult. I work hard to not do it in an aggressive, abusive way like my dad did with his laws that he stated in my childhood. Everything my dad said was to be accepted as law in our house. He was the dictator. I am not a child to be ruled by anyone today. I am an adult and I do often have an opinion. I respect the opinions of others and I hope they will respect mine.

I can't change or fix another person. I can try to understand them and their view point. I don't mind that others have a view point different than mine. Those differences are what make the world an interesting place to me. When another person starts name calling or treating me like I am inferior to them, then I feel as I did as a child who was not respected, not listened to and not allowed to have an opinion. Don't call me a victim or say that I am creating drama just because I express an opinion different than yours. I have learned not to strike out at a person in anger. I will regret what I say each time. I have learned that if I am angry, it is my issue, usually from the past, that I need to work on. Usually I work on an issue by writing about it, as I am doing now. The other person's issues are not my business.

Another person's air of superiority can only affect me if I am feeling inferior. I have come to know that a superiority complex means the person is feeling inferior inside and afraid of others seeing it. I know because I used to do this with a sarcastic tongue. What we often see in others is because it is also a part of us. I have been there, done that, when I was younger so I know the fears behind the superiority and the sarcasm. Both keep others from getting too close so they can't hurt you. Today if I use sarcasm it is only in fun and never to hurt someone else.

We all have our own issues to deal with sometimes on a daily basis. Just know that your issues are yours. If someone else triggers you, it isn't their responsibility to fix it or you. It is yours. If you are angry or scared or sad because of something that was said or because of a situation you are in, look to yourself, usually your past, to find the answers. If you concentrate on the other person and what they said or what they did, you won't heal you. You will just add more woundedness to what you already have. My computer says that "woundedness" isn't a word. Well, it should be. Neither is "thriver" and again, it should be. As survivors, we are changing the world, one person at a time. We are inventing a new vocabulary to help us do it. Hope you are loving this late Sunday afternoon, my friends.
Patricia

Saturday, November 9, 2013

I
am an incest survivor and an adult child of an alcoholic. My dad and my
grandfather were mean drunks who influenced me to not drink because I
was afraid of becoming like them. I am also a survivor of domestic
violence from my
dad's rages when he was at home. Even when he wasn't raging, he was
verbally abusive with name-calling and intimidation. He was a dictator
with his controlling of the entire family. My mother rarely made an
decisions and I wasn't taught how either. My family was dysfunctional
in the extreme.

I
have memories of incest happening from age 11-17. The first memories
were of being raped by an uncle on a fishing trip and a long weekend
alone with him at my grandmother's. He lied to me and my mother when he
said my grandmother was home. She came home on Monday afternoon.

A
few weeks later, my dad decided I was old enough to take my mother's
place working twice a day on weekends helping my dad out at the dairy
milking cows. On my first night of helping at the dairy, we went to the
hay loft to throw down hay bails. While there, my dad took his shirt off
and spread it out on a bail of hay and told me to pull down my pants
and to lay down across the hay bail. No explanation was given for his
actions. I remember feeling disgusted and thinking to myself, "Not daddy
too." That is how the incest started and went on for 6 years. Every
time my dad left the house, I was sent with him and I would be raped
before we came back home. Sometimes later on he
would also wake me up early mornings before the rest of the family woke
up and he would abuse me in another room of our house. Most of the
abuse took place in the front seat of his truck. My mother sent me on
many of those trips. She missed many signs that I was being abused
because she didn't want to see them.

At
17, I knew I was strong enough to say no to the sex and not let my dad
manipulate me into changing my mind. The sex stopped but the emotional
and verbal abuse continued until I ran away when I was 19 on the day
after I took my last test of my second year at a junior college. I
packed a small shopping bag that I
normally carried books in with a few changes of clothes. I gave my
sister a note to give to my mother when I didn't come home that night
and had my mother drop me off at the college on her way to work that
morning. An angel of a friend who was older than my own parents picked
me up and took me home and gave me a place to live and helped me get my
very first job for the Summer. After 3 days of my mother lying, she
told my dad where I was. He came after me. I went home for the weekend
and then went back to my friend's house on Sunday evening.
I had broken away from my dad's control. That took more courage than I
knew I had. If I had stayed, I would have had a nervous breakdown and
would have lost myself completely. I knew that so I was strong enough to
not give in to pleas and threats that my dad used to get me to stay.

I
went away to college at the end of that Summer and as a Junior at 20
years old, I met and 8 months later married my husband. Before we were
married, he knew he was not my first sexual experience but I could not
tell him that most of my experience came from my dad. I was too afraid
he would leave me. We were married for 8 years (1980) when I told him
and my sister both about the incest. Even after telling them both the
truth, I continued to pretend that the incest was not affecting my life.
In my marriage, I became a controller thinking that would make me feel
safe. It didn't. People tried telling me what I was doing but I wasn't
ready to hear it until one day my husband came in from work. I got angry
about something, I don't even remember what it was
about. I do remember hearing myself screaming at my husband that I
hated him and I hated everything about my life. A part of me was
watching and listening and was in shock that I blamed my husband for the
hatred and the anger when it wasn't his fault. I knew in my gut that it
was me that I hated, not him. I hated myself for the incest. I thought I
was bad because of it. Almost immediately, I apologized to him and
started working on changing me. Our county library only had 3 books
about incest and none of them offered much help. I started reading books
on self-improvement and started working on letting go of some of my
controlling behaviors. Small changes happened but still no work on the
incest issues. I didn't even know I still had incest issues. I wanted to
pretend that I didn't. Today I know that is called denial and it is
very unhealthy. Denial keeps you in the hurt.

My
real healing started in January 1989 with my first 12-Step meeting.
Since my dad and grandfather were both alcoholics, I was considered an
adult child. I choose to not drink because of the fear that I would lose
control and be a mean drunk too. Thanks to a book called Adult Children
of Alcoholics written by Janet G. Woititz, I looked in my newspaper and
found an adult child recovery group. In my mind the alcoholism and
incest were intertwined. I couldn't separate the issues even though my
dad didn't drink all of the time that he abused me.

I
used those 12-Step meetings to talk about the incest. Those caring
people believed me and didn't judge me or tell me that I was bad. They
told me to get a sponsor and to work the Steps. My sponsor should have
been a woman but I didn't trust women. The women in my childhood were
all judgmental. One of them even told me when I was 5 years old that I
was going to Hell for wearing shorts. I picked a man as my sponsor who I
felt safe with. Shortly afterwards, he had me start working the 12
Steps and, after finishing with the first three Steps, writing out a
very long 4th Step which had over 100 questions for me to answer about
my childhood. I don't remember how long it took me to write out all of
those answers but I was healing thru writing for the first time. Writing
has always
been an important tool to my healing. In writing, I don't censor my
thoughts. I just write the words and feelings come out with the
memories. I still do this today even. Those 12-Step meetings and the
work I did with my sponsor saved my life and my marriage. I learned
about codependency and dysfunctional families and so much about myself. I
also went to 12-Step meetings for families and friends of alcoholics
and found out where so many of my characteristics came from. I have
written about those 12-Step meetings and the healing that I did in my
blog Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker.
( http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com )

I
do not remember who directed me to read The Courage to Heal written by
Ellen Bass and Laura Davis but I am so grateful that they did. Not long
after I finished reading The Courage to Heal, the workbook which was
written by Laura Davis came out and I wrote my way thru all of the
exercises in the Workbook. Those two books helped me to dig deep into
the pain to start to do some major healing. I used those and other books
and my 12-Step groups to talk, write and to heal my way thru the worst
of my incest issues over the next 10 years. I was also in two different
incest survivor counseling groups for a total of about 5 years. Because
of the 12-Step concept of a Higher Power, I was also able to heal my
relationship with God and myself. This was also the
beginning of my spiritual journey.

In
2007, I got my first computer and thru meeting a new friend online who
offered me much encouragement to write and share my story and also
instructed me on how to set up a blog, my blog Spiritual Journey Of A
Lightworker came into being June 1, 2007. Its growth has been slow and
steady as other survivors have found and supported my articles.
Regretfully over the past two years, I haven't written as many articles
because of health problems and more time away from the computer. I do
appreciate all of the support of my readers. It is thru my blog over the
past six years that I have come to know
a community of survivors and have in the past three years thru my blog,
the use of Facebook and Twitter, I have become an advocate for myself
and for other survivors of incest, rape, bullying, sibling abuse and
domestic violence. I have spoken on a number of radio programs over the
past three years to reach out to other survivors and to tell my story so
that others know they can also tell their stories and they will be
believed. I am an advocate for children, women and men. I am so grateful
that men survivors are now breaking their own silence of abuse. Now the
picture will come closer to being accurate. Too many of us have
suffered in silence. I want survivors to know that they are not alone. I
and others are here to hear you and support you back to health and
healing.

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About Me

I have been on a spiritual path my entire life but only in the last 20+ years have I known what that entailed. My spiritual beliefs are taken from varied religions and my inner knowing. On my fireplace mantle, you will find pictures of American Indians, wolves, buffaloes, and eagles. You will find feathers, stones, crystals, essential oils, and candles. You will find pictures of Jesus, Mother Mary, Krishna, Ganesh and Sai Baba. I believe in all of them. The more I grow spiritually, the more expansive the Universe and my God become. I have been to India three times to visit Sai Baba. I was told to go home and worship the God of my understanding and to pay more attention to my own inner teacher. My stories are just a point of reference for who I am today. I don't go around identifying myself as all of my experiences. Before I started blogging, I had even stopped calling myself an Incest Survivor because that wasn't who I was any longer. I only do it now as a point of reference to offer what I have learned about myself because of the incest to others who might need the hope and love that I have learned. We are all so much more than our experiences can define us as.

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Blessings To All

Divine Love, flowing through me, blesses and multiplies all that I am, all that I have, all that I give, and all that I receive. Thank you.

Disclaimer

The information that you will find on this website and blog are written to be strictly educational or entertaining. I do not claim to be a counselor or a teacher. I am a fellow traveler through this Life. I have thoroughly researched my life and my issues. My desire is to help others through sharing my knowledge and experiences. If you don't want to feel anything, please leave my site. If you want to stay asleep, leave now. My blog is about awareness, my awareness of my life. I accept no responsibility for how you use what you read here. What you do with this information is entirely at your discretion. Seek professional help, if needed.Feel free to share my words and articles with others. I ask only that you change nothing about the articles and that you give me credit as the author.Patricia Singleton